The Life of Thomas Wanless, Peasant

Some years ago it was my habit to spend the long vacation in a quiet Warwickshire village, not far from the fashionable town of Leamington. I chose this spot for its sweet peace and its withdrawnness; for the opportunities it gave me of wandering along the beautiful tree-shaded country lanes; for its nearness to such historical spots as Warwick, Kenilworth, and Stratford-on-Avon, to all of which I could either walk or ride in a morning. But I love a quiet village for its own sake above most things, and would rather spend my leisure amongst its simple cottage folk, take my rest on the bench at the village alehouse door, and walk amid the smock-frocked peasantry to the grey village church, than mingle with the fashionable, over-dressed, prurient, hollow-hearted, and artificial products of civilisation that constitute themselves society—yea a thousand-fold rather. To me the restfulness of a little village, with its cots nestling among the drowsy trees in a warm summer day, is a foreshadowing of the rest of heaven. So I settled myself in little Ashbrook, in a room sweet and cool, of its little inn, and laughed at the foolish creatures who, with weary, purposeless steps trode daily the Leamington Parade with hearts full of all envy and jealousy at sight of such Other descendants of our tattooed ancestors as fortune might enable to gaud their bodies more lavishly than they. These droned their idle life away flirting, reading the skim-milk, often unwholesome, literature of the fashionable library; jabbering about dress, and picking characters to pieces; shooting in the gardens at archery meetings; patronising religious shows and thinking it refinement. And I? I wander forth alone, filling my sketch-book with whatsoever takes my fancy, or, in sociable moods, drink my ale in rustic company, talking of hard winters and low wages, the difficulty of living, of rural incidents, and the joys and sorrows of those toilers by whose hard labour the few are made rich.